Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Loss of Innocence

Please don't tell me, please don't tell me.......

In my younger days I always believed everything I read in the newspaper. In fact I had so much respect for newspapers I spent my career working for more than a few of them, either as an art director, graphic designer or writer, on staff or freelance. But then a few cracks in the armor appeared, revealing glimpses of how the executives at the top (and some of the reporters at the bottom) were manipulating things to sell more papers, thus rake in more advertising. My awakening was gradual, until one day I finally understood that newspapers are a for-profit business, not a public service. I consider that moment, somewhere in my mid-thirties, as my true loss of innocence.

Since then my habit is to remain skeptical of everything I haven't witnessed personally, which makes the act of reading a daily paper little more than a diversion to accompany breakfast. I do this despite knowing that it's far healthier to eat a meal without any distractions but rather to give full attention to what you're putting in your body. So it makes sense that one should give as much attention, if not more, to what goes into your mind, which means I can no longer read the daily paper. It's too risky, what with me being slightly nuts already, and even more so in the current climate of "fake news" being dispensed everywhere, even by the once respectable but now fallen CNN and New York Times.

So with all this free time I'm hoping to make more art. Shown above is my latest oil painting of South Freeport Road, a lovely backwoods road I travel several times each day. Seen here it is a late afternoon in early autumn when a big moon hung in the sky, even though it was not yet night.